


Pursuit

by Drakey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Fighter Pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drakey/pseuds/Drakey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter is probably the best pilot in his squadron. His wingmen know it, his commanding officers know it, and the Luftwaffe knows it, and therein lies the problem, because when you make your plane unique to scare your enemies, your enemies start throwing their best at you.</p><p>(Or, I've been playing a WWII flying game and writing fanfiction, this was inevitable.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Harry Potter grimaced and pulled hard on the yolk, slamming the rudder to the same side and throwing his Spitfire into a tight, nigh-suicidal corkscrew, yanking the best airplane England had produced yet over, down, up, and back around while bullets stabbed through the air exactly where he had just been. He caught a glimpse of his wingman, Ron, sliding his own Spitfire in a stutteringly insane maneuver that took him from the tail of the Me-109 he'd been chasing to another that he actually had a chance of catching. As Harry finished his own singularly irrational move, the fighter that had been on his tail blew past him going exactly the wrong direction. The air over Belgium was thick with bullets today, and Harry added his own, punching a series of holes in the fuselage of a target of opportunity. The 109's pilot twitched his plane into a roll at exactly the wrong moment, and Harry smiled to himself as the German plane started trailing smoke. 

He didn't have time to do more than smile, though. A roll and a push on the yolk sent him angling towards the ground, the air screaming over his canopy until he pulled back up and the plane on his tail was forced to try to copy the maneuver. 

"Christ, Lion," Ron's voice called over the radio. "I thought he had you there. You've got a second one coming up on your left."

"Take care of that for me, will you, Stoat?" Harry said.

He heard Ron's fighter go roaring by underneath as he kept climbing. Keeping track of the number of fighters in the air, German and British both, was hard, but it was also second nature. He let himself stall. The controls went mushy in his hands and Harry leaned the rudder to the left, feeling the Spitfire ooze around, yawing gently, like butter on a hot pan, sliding until he had a perfect view of a very surprised Nazi. He started shooting, and he didn't stop until he had blown past the cloud of oily black smoke where the enemy plane had been before it went spiraling off on an uncontrolled, unwanted, unsurvivable dive. Harry leveled out and returned to escorting the bombers. 

"You boys done playing with your Luftwaffe friends?" Neville Longbottom said dryly over the radio as Harry pulled up alongside his Lancaster. 

"Well, you know, we've got to give our guests a proper welcome," Harry said.

"Can't have them thinking less of our famous English hospitality," Ron added.

Neville started making a reply, but before he got a single word out, whatever he had been about to say was replaced by "Shit!"

"What?" Harry said. 

"262s!" Neville said, fear tinting his voice. "Five o' clock!"

"On it," Harry said. He and Ron peeled off as one, and it was easy enough to spot the German fighters, coming in at their usual monstrous pace. A few other British planes were moving to intercept, but he and Ron were definitely at the front of the pack. There were only a few of the jets. 

"We both go after the center, then?" Harry said.

"Of course," Ron replied. They converged as one on the 262.

It rolled. "Don't chase him," Harry said as the enemy pilot threw his left wing straight up and broke away on an arc, but Ron was already chasing him. Harry swore. There was a second 262 right behind the lead one, and Harry targeted that plane and fired. It fired back. Harry threw his Spitfire into a dive and cringed a bit when bullets spanged off his tail. He pulled back up, looping completely over and rolling at the top. He was not met with an encouraging sight. The Germans had already shot down two of his wingmates. Harry glanced at the picture tucked into his control panel. In some high-speed maneuvers, she actually came free enough to almost float away around the cockpit. Hermione would probably be a bit irritated if he got himself killed over some anonymous patch of Belgium. He smiled at her and gunned the throttle, charging after the Germans.

He could see Ron, swinging his tail around in ways that a craft with fixed wings really oughtn't to be able to. That was Ron's specialty, and it had its place, confusing the hell out of enemy pilots, but Harry preferred to simply out-turn, out-speed, and outfox his opponents. Only the last one was really easy with a 262 on the other end of the fight.

Harry loosed a few rounds at the fighter Ron was dueling with, but it was a cursory assault. He was already picking out his real target. One of the 262s was obviously pushing his throttle harder than he should be, and the Allied pilots knew, by then, what the end result of that was. Sure enough, as Harry drew his sights up on the jet, its right engine flared with bright flames and definitely lost thrust. The whole plane slewed to the right, and Harry opened up on it. 

That German didn't last long at all.

Harry was in the hairball by then, streaking past Spitfires and Messerschmitts alike, cutting across the flow of combat. He rolled right, pulled up, and swung around in a tight turn that...

Harry's life flashed before his eyes. An enemy plane was adjusting, in a frantic attempt to stop a collision. Hermione's photograph pulled loose from the spot where it was wedged and bounced on Harry's knee. The Me-262's pilot, a pale-faced blonde who probably didn't always look quite so panicked, was forcing his plane into a maneuver so unnatural that Harry doubted it could be done. Harry loosened his own turn, and his own green eyes met the other pilot's grey as their canopies brushed together. Harry heard the crack of glass chipping away over his head, saw the reflection of his special paint scheme--red lions outlined in gold on the nose of his Spitfire--on the other man's canopy, saw the other pilot's rudder rushing towards him, and the German rolled, and somehow, though Harry wouldn't swear to the fact for a few hours afterward, neither of them were dead.

Harry tried to shake it off. Ron was saying something over the radio, but he couldn't really pay attention to it. He just latched onto a target and started shooting.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry's next target evaded him flawlessly, and he couldn't move into a chase, chases were suicide against the speed of a 262. Instead, Harry leaned left, swinging around and getting a good look at the fight. There were five Germans left. Most of them were flying the same colors, but one was significantly _greener_. Harry couldn't draw a bead on that one, so he searched until he found a jet that sparkled oddly at the top of its canopy.

"Found him," He reported over the radio.

"Oh, good, your wireless didn't get knocked out by that smack," Ron said. "Who did you find?"

"My friend with the damaged canopy."

"Take him down then," Ron suggested.

Harry was already on it. He angled in, leading the target, and started shooting. He didn't have many more kills left in him. He was starting to run out of ammunition, and he knew it, but the bullets he managed to put on the blonde's jet did what he wanted them to. The German started going down.

Harry swung around to the left, and spotted another German plane slipping around behind him.

"A turning battle? Really?"

Harry spilled the air from under his left wing, and as his prey came into sight, he realized his error.

He couldn't see the green German.

Bullets ripped into the back of Harry's spitfire. A single 30mm round tore through Harry's left arm and a hole appeared in the instrument panel in front of him. Thick black smoke started filling the cockpit. Another bullet smacked through the canopy, and smoke started coming out of the hole it left. Something in front of Harry made a loud banging noise. A piece of his propeller went flying off at a horrible velocity, Harry turned his head, and, almost in slow motion, through the gently encroaching red fog of his injury, he saw the green German pulling past him. The Nazi's jet was in mid-roll, he was looking up at Harry...

He didn't see the next chunk of propeller, but Harry did. It arced out at just the right angle. The dark-haired, cold-faced German took the flying shrapnel hard in his right shoulder, and his jet slowly tumbled out of control.

"Lion!" Ron shouted over the radio. "Harry!"

Harry picked up the picture of Hermione from his knee and smiled hazily at it.

"Ron," he tried to put together his thoughts, but they were disjointed and wrong. He was over Belgium. Some anonymous patch of Belgium. "Tell Hermione I'll bring her back some black market chocolate."

+----+

Harry's head hurt. He was aware that his head hurt, so he figured he must be alive. Sharp pain radiated out from a point on his forehead, and more immediate, demanding, _utterly horrific_ pain emanated from his left arm. 

He pushed himself upright, opened his eyes, and groaned unhappily. He wasn't sure exactly when he blacked out, but he had apparently landed relatively okay. Something was pounding on the canopy. There was blood in Harry's face.

He turned and saw a woman, a girl, really, with platinum blonde hair down to her waist, pounding on the glass. Harry popped it open and let her drag him out. She was speaking French, and Harry shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I will 'elp oo," she managed in deeply broken English.

Harry let her support him to a cabin not far away. She bound up his arm and cleaned his head, and patched up any number of other awful things. He grimaced at his first glimpse of his reflection in the mirror. He was going to have a jagged scar on his forehead.

He had gone out and retrieved his pistol and his picture of Hermione before he learned his host's name. Fleur Delacour. He shook her hand.

"Hello Fleur, I'm Harry." 

She smiled at him. Another time, another place, another circumstance, and three years less war under his belt, and he might have turned that smile into something far less innocent, but right now, all he wanted was to get home.

"Do you know how I can get back to England?"


	3. Chapter 3

Tom Riddle crawled from the wreckage of his jet. Whatever useless patch of Belgian countryside he had just slammed into, it hadn't been enough to kill him. Not that anyone should have expected different. As he dragged his service pistol out of his plane (he went for the FN 1922; whatever anyone else said about the PPK, he felt like the FN was just more durable), he glared at the blood flowing freely down his right arm. It wasn't exactly the worst of his injuries. Shattered glass had torn his face to shreds, quite a few torn strips of his jet's firewall had slashed his legs, and his altimeter had done its best to lodge in his gut.

He flicked some blood off of his fingers and moved on. There was a small village not far away. Likely they would try to kill him. A lone Nazi pilot, badly wounded and poorly armed would seem a ripe target to the Resistance. Tom intended to teach them what a ripe target could do. There must be fifty or sixty people in the little hamlet. With eighteen rounds, he could not dispatch all of them by gun, but he hardly meant to use only his eighteen rounds. 

A glance at the sky told him a few things. First, the fight had moved on. Although it thundered and rumbled off to the South and East, there was no knot of planes overhead. Second, the trail of oily black smoke that led to his own wrecked plane was close enough to his victim's trail to paint a clear picture of the fight. The Spitfire had crashed somewhere on the opposite side of the village. Tom began to stagger towards the meager collection of houses.

+----+

Harry looked over the Belgian village one last time. The plume of smoke, presumably from the green German, still hung a little ominously in the distance behind the buildings. Fleur seemed to think this was the way to go, so he was just gritting his teeth and getting through. The Belgian Resistance had given him some supplies, a little food and extra rounds for his pistol, as well as bandages for his wounds and a map.

Harry strongly suspected the blow to the head he'd taken was having a fairly miserable effect on his thinking. He leaned against a tree to collect his thoughts. He sat down, and let his eyes drift closed.

He'd be in England soon enough, and wouldn't Hermione be disappointed when it turned out he'd not picked up any of that black-market chocolate.

+----+

Tom scowled at the last of the Resistance fighters. The man was pathetic, and looked like a Jew, and had broken with almost shocking speed under just a few threats. There were supplies missing. Not that Tom would likely have spotted it without some fool keeping track of medical supplies with meticulous care. Bandages, and alcohol, and food and ammunition. Tom pulled the trigger of his MP 38. He only wished he could take all of the guns the Resistance had stolen from their rulers.

He toed aside the body of his latest kill. The English Bastard in the Red Spitfire was still alive. Tom's record was blemished. Nineteen enemies shot down, all confirmed as kills, but now this Bastard had survived. Even worse, he'd injured Tom in his death throes.

Tom kicked open the door. An old woman stared at him from across the street. A man with a bloody face rolling into town with a gun and emptying it into the local Resistance was apparently cause for concern. He shot her for the crime of existing.

The Englishman would want to return to the Island of Cowards. He would be going Northwest.

Tom took the road out of town.

+----+

Thunder woke Harry, and he stared up at a clear blue sky.

The echoes of the thunderclap still sounded.

No thunderclap that, but a gunshot. Harry scrambled up and peered around. A laugh sounded in the distance. He pulled out the binoculars he'd been given and blanched at what he saw. The Green German had been stained red. Blood soaked the man's clothes, dripped from his fingers. Where he hadn't bled into his shredded uniform, he'd coated it with the blood of others. A submachine gun hung from his right hand, and Harry gasped as he brought it up. At first, he thought he'd been spotted, but there was no way. Frankly, it was surprising the man could see at all. His face--oh, God, Harry thought, his face--was a ruin. His nose and lips had been completely obliterated by shattered glass. His hair was matted to his skull with blood, and one ear was completely gone. He fired a burst down the road, but not at Harry so much as in general. Gravel and dust spat up from where the bullets struck.

Harry ran.


	4. Chapter 4

The Belgian countryside might have seemed inviting only a few years before. Harry could recall talking with Hermione about her long-ago trip to the continent. Her father was a dentist, and successful enough that the Slump hadn't put him anything like out of business. She had stories of visiting all over Europe, trying out French fashion and sampling voluptuous desserts in Greece or Spain. She'd never got to Belgium. Somehow, Harry suspected she would find it less than charming now.

The Green German had taken aim at him when he ran, but a submachine gun was hardly a sniper's weapon. Harry still cursed himself for trying to run down the main road. He was, perhaps, still fuzzy from his injury. The sun was streaming through the trees, late afternoon dappling the ground. The German was a nightmare. His ravaged face, his bleeding gut, his torn legs... That the man could stand at all was astonishing. But every time Harry looked back to see his pursuer, the German was walking down the road, as though he was taking a brusque evening stroll, instead of bleeding profusely from a dozen places. He should be _staggering,_ so injured was he, if not crawling. Again, Harry peered out into the road. 

He had seven rounds in his Webley and fourteen more in his pockets. In brown and tan, he stood out against the bluebells in the woods. He drew careful aim, but swore loudly when the German spotted him and swung his gun up to release a staccato burst of gunfire towards Harry. Splinters flew from the tree Harry was sheltering behind. He popped out the opposite side of the tree and fired back, three rounds that made the German flinch a little and bought him the time to flee into the woods.

He was leaving a trail of crushed flowers, and he knew it. He could only hope the better-armed German would just bleed out. Somehow, that was seeming less and less likely.

+----+

Cedric lay very still in his little sniper's nest, his stolen rifle by his side. The distant cracks of gunfire had been haunting the woods all day. The animals were used to it by now. They barely stirred at all when a gun went off or a flight of bombers flew overhead. As the sun set, a few of the treetops had stirred a little. Someone--or, more optimistically, something--was running through the woods. Thirteen homes relied on Cedric to protect them. Lamps shed carefully arranged light throughout the outskirts of the little town. Little approached from the East that Cedric didn't know about, with his binoculars and gun. Thirty bullets sat next to the rifle. One in the chamber.

A figure emerged from the edge of the forest, and Cedric took careful aim. The man was limping a little, likely from a leg cramp. Messy hair, courtesy of a pilot's helmet, crowned a face covered in fresh blood that had leaked from a bandage around his head. His left arm was wrapped in even more bandages, also bleeding.

He skidded to a stop as he came into the light. The intruder looked around at the lights and then held up his right hand with the fingers extended in a "V."

Cedric grinned. The intruder was making an obscene gesture, technically, but it was also very British and sort of Churchill-ey. A pretty good signal.

"Come stand at the bottom of the barn," Cedric yelled.

"I'm being chased by a madman with a gun!" the man yelled. He had a light, sort of Wessex accent.

"That's called a soldier," Cedric said.

"I think this one's more madman!"

A dozen gunshots rang out of the woods. The barn below him spat woodchips into the night. Cedric swore. He had taken his eyes of of the woods, and he couldn't see where the muzzle flash had been.

"Well, he is shooting at a sniper," Cedric conceded as the messy-haired Englishman ran into the barn itself, turning to fire a couple of shots with a service pistol. More gunfire roared out of the woods, and Cedric fired at the muzzle flash. Everything got very quiet, save for the other Englishman climbing up towards Cedric's sniper's nest. Creaking wood and the soft sounds of Cedric reloading. He mumbled to himself once or twice, and glanced at the rifle while he got the round into the breech.

"Bloody imbecile," he remarked conversationally as his new friend emerged in the sniper's nest. "Firing on a sniper at night with an automatic. Might as well have worn a spotlight."

"You killed him?"

"Think so," Cedric said. He rolled over and grinned. "Cedric Diggory. Damned fine to hear English spoken. These people are excellent, but all they know is yes, no, and crumpet."

The other man fumbled his service pistol from right hand to left and shook Cedric's offered hand. "Harry Potter. Pleased to meet you. Seems you have a fairly nice setup here."

"Well, I found myself stuck 'round here last year," Cedric said. "The Krauts only come by once every few months, and they're not concerned enough with this place to dig me out. I'd go back to England, but these people would suffer if I left, and I've plenty of reason to like it better here. I'll guess you were with that bomber flight that went by before?"

Harry nodded. 

"Well," Cedric said, "I'll send you along tomorrow. With a new pistol, probably. Those Webleys are terrible, you know." He scanned the ground below. "I've a few letters I'd like you to take back with you." Cedric reached into his jacket and withdrew a small sheaf of papers. "They go to Lee Jordan. Lieutenant in the US Army. His eyes only, I'm afraid." Cedric rolled back to his stomach and resumed watching the lighted ground below.

"Odd place to send letters," Harry remarked, sinking to sit next to Cedric.

"He's a friend. Probably the best friend I ever had. We were injured together in North Africa. Wound up in hospital right next to each other." Cedric quirked a small smile. "Lee tried to beg a kiss off every nurse that came through. Other soldiers were awful to him. He's... well, he's not white, and they're not nice." He glanced at Harry. Harry had already fallen asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe one or two more chapters of this forthcoming. Off to edit the tags again...


	5. Chapter 5

A soft creaking noise came from the barn door. Tom Riddle watched it through narrowed eyes. Clotted blood had covered the right side of his face. He could feel his strength flagging. 

The barn door creaked, and he made the next step in clearing his jammed gun. It clicked loudly and the offending casing fell to the ground. Each time the door swung on its hinge, he moved again, inspecting his weapon and checking his ammunition. The Englishman had reduced him to a bare dozen rounds. Tom would kill him, would destroy him as completely as he could, kill him and drag his corpse into the center of town and burn it, use the flames from him to set the barn on fire, and the village, and the villagers. The barn door creaked again, and again, and again. Each time, Tom came a step closer to being ready to kill.

+----+

Cedric woke with a little jerk. His rifle clicked as he jostled it, and Harry thrashed to full alertness beside him, waving his pistol around and letting out a little yell. "Is he back?" the younger Brit demanded.

Cedric looked down at the early-morning light on the field below. "No. Check inside the barn. I dozed off."

Harry leaned over the edge of the little platform. "Clear," he said after a few moments of intense inspection. Cedric kept watching.

"The townspeople will be helping patrol soon," Cedric said. "Keep a watch for our German friend, just in case. I'm going to head down."

He went to stand, and the instant he got past a sitting position, a staccato rattle of gunfire sounded from the woods. Cedric gasped, his legs flying out from under him, and dropped in front of Harry's astonished eyes. His foot caught on his gun, and it soared out of the window, clattering to the ground. Cedric grasped at his chest, where a bloom of red blood was growing. His legs dangled out of the window, and Harry rushed forward to catch him as he began to slide out. A flash of movement on the ground caught Harry's eye, and he ducked back from a cracking pistol shot.

Cedric slid and fell out of the window, hitting the ground with a crunch.

Harry leaned toward the edge of Cedric's sniper nest in time to see the Green German pump a bullet into Cedric's head. "No!" Harry yelled futilely, too little, too late. He brought his Webley up squeezed off two rounds, but insufficient sleep and no food fouled his aim. Bullets chewed the earth near the German but none hit their mark.

The German sneered and pointed his own pistol. He fired, and fired again, and a third time...

And his gun fell silent. He threw it aside and ran for the barn door. Harry scrambled to the ladder side of Cedric's platform in the barn, he brought his gun around, and he flinched back with a gasp as a slung stone snapped into the wood beside his head. Harry emerged again, and the German was out of tricks. He pointed his pistol, fired, fired again, and swore as it jammed. His wrists were loose and tired, and he hadn't let the semiautomatic action move smoothly enough. As he fumbled with the gun, the wounded German began to climb the ladder. The jam was stubborn. Harry backed away from the approaching German, finally removed the jammed round, and yelled "motherfuck!" as the slide pinched his fumbling finger. His hand jerked and the gun arced away from him. Harry reached to catch it. His fingertips brushed the handle and it spun down to the ground, clattering and partially disassembling.

The German's ravaged face appeared over the side of the platform. He rushed Harry, and Harry stood to strike at him. The German's shoulder slammed into him. Harry pitched out the window, falling out and away. He landed flat on his back and was still.

+----+

"Harry." Harry's eye opened and he looked around. "You dozed off," Hermione told him with a little smile. "Too much beer?"

"I guess," Harry muttered. "Where's the Nazi?"

"Nazi?"

Harry frowned. "He was chasing me. In Belgium." He looked around. They were in the Leaky Keg, where they'd had their first evening together. They had talked long into the night, about air raids and politics. It had been magical. So many of the girls he knew wanted to talk about how he flew, or how they felt about him. Hermione wanted to talk about how women were taking over all the factory jobs in America, and the little town where she came from, and how she thought she could be mayor someday.

"I'm dreaming," Harry concluded.

"Well, probably." Even in his dreams, Hermione knew. She wouldn't be Hermione if she didn't accept it.

"I'm going to get you that chocolate," Harry promised her.

"Not if you have a bullet in your brain," Hermione said sadly.

Harry opened his eyes. Something was digging into the small of his back. His Webley. Footsteps swished through the grass around him. A thickly accented voice spoke in English.

"Airman Potter. I will have fun killing you."

Harry tried to wiggle his toes. His left foot wouldn't move. His right arm throbbed. Obviously, it was broken. He twisted on the ground. 

"The French, cowards that they are, they gave me... what do you call it... a name... that is not my name."

Harry stuck his left hand under him and grunted in pain. The place where the bullet had torn his forearm when he was shot down throbbed. He couldn't reach the Webley.

"Every time I fly, I kill. They call me Flight of Death."

Harry strained. His fingertips reached the handle of the gun.

"Vol de Mort. You stopped me. I will burn this village. I hope you will be happy that I use your body as wood to burn."

Harry looked into the barrel of Cedric's rifle. The German... Vol de Mort... had it pointed at him. Harry inched his pistol into his hand. The German pulled the rifle's trigger. Nothing happened. Harry pulled out his Webley and brought it up. The slide fell off and dropped onto his face.

The German's mocking laughter speared into his head. He raised up the rifle to smash it into Harry's face, and Harry rolled aside. The barrel of the rifle dug into the ground. Harry grabbed it with his good hand, letting the pistol drop to the ground. He wrenched the rifle out of the German's hands and swung one handed at the other man's knees. The German dropped, and Harry rolled, throwing the rifle off to the side. He got his hand around the German's throat. The German grabbed for his throat as well.

"Die!" Harry yelled.

The German spat at him. Blood-tinged saliva clouded Harry's eyes. He scrabbled in the grass with his right hand. Agony shot up and down his arm in sporadic bursts, and his hand closed weakly around the slide from his pistol. He picked it up and dropped it against his left hand. The German's grip on his throat was tight. Darkness was started to creep in around the edges of his vision.

He rolled the slide under his fingers and gripped it, then he drew it hard across and away from the German's throat. Blood welled up where he had drawn the slide.

The German reached up to his own throat, and Harry fell onto his chest. He scrabbled around for his knife at his side. His left hand found it, and he swung his arm up and slammed it into the German's throat.

Slowly, the German stopped moving.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry limped into the pilots' lounge and looked around. It wasn't an "official" pilots' lounge, which suited him just fine. The boys would have revolted if they were forced to spend downtime in an official lounge. Instead, they hung around where they could bring women. Neville had Hannah, and usually sat in surprisingly scandalous positions with her in the corner. Finch-Fletchley, the little weasel, sat always at the center of a group of admirers. 

The center of the room was for Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Ron sat there now, talking softly and intimately to Hermione. Neither had looked up when he opened the door, and now he approached until he could hear what Ron was saying.

"...next boat from the mainland. There's always some new miracle happening--"

"You can't count on miracles, Ronald," Hermione interrupted, slightly hysterical.

Before either of them could look up, Harry spoke. "You have to count on people, instead." He tossed a little bag he was carrying to Hermione. She caught it with a blankly astonished look on her face. "Sorry it took so long. I wound up having to go via the French resistance. Stoat, have you made your move?"

Ron's mouth worked open and closed without producing a sound, and then he yelled "LION!" and leapt up to embrace Harry. Everyone turned to look, and a cheer began, and became a roar, so loud no one's words could be heard. Only after a very long time and a great deal of convincing did they all quiet down enough that Harry could hear his best friend speking to him.

"She's your girl, mate," Ron began, but Harry clamped a hand over his arm.

"She's her own girl, Stoat. You know that by now. Hermione, I have to go away for a while. I've some letters to deliver. I'd love to have a companion on the road, but you know what will happen if I do."

Hermione looked between the men for a minute and nodded stiffly. "Tell us about what happened to you when you get back. You're an absolute mess. It must have been exciting. But right now, sit and have a drink with us."

It took a moment, but Ron's face lit up as he absorbed the implications of her words, and very primly, Hermione sat by his side and made it clear that she'd chosen him. She wasn't his girl; he was her man. Harry sat to have a beer with his friends.

+----+

2 YEARS LATER

Lee Jordan wheeled himself to the front door, opening it only as wide as the chain would allow. A smallish, messy-haired white man in a nice suit stood on the porch, and Lee tensed. In Georgia, a well-dressed white man on his stoop could mean trouble. But the man spoke, and Lee was immediately catapulted back years, to a sweltering African desert and a rakish young Brit.

"Lee Jordan? My name is Harry Potter, and I believe I have some correspondence overdue for you. Did you spend some time with a Cedric Diggory during the war?"

Tears came to Lee's face. "I suppose he didn't make it, then?"

Harry Potter shook his head. "I'm afraid not, but I'm sure he'd be glad to know you're receiving his letters. There are thirteen of them. Apparently, he wrote you once a month while he was in Belgium."

"That's him alright." Lee closed the door to unhook the chain and let Harry in. "Come sit down. I'd love to talk about Cedric with you."


End file.
